MANILA - Hundreds of rescuers and tons of emergency supplies were put in place across the northern Philippines on Tuesday as Typhoon "Ramil" (international code name Lupit) threatened to dump more deadly rains on the storm-ravaged region.

Preparations were also being made to evacuate residents from areas in the direct path of "Ramil", which was packing gusts of up to 230 kilometers (142 miles) an hour and expected to make landfall on Thursday, authorities said.

“Ramil” was set to be the third major storm in less than a month to pound Luzon island, and many areas remain extremely vulnerable to further bad weather with dams already overflowing and soaked soil unable to absorb more rain.

Tropical storms Ondoy (Ketsana) and Pepeng (Parma) claimed nearly 1,000 lives in the nation's capital, Manila, and other areas of Luzon.

Bonifacio Cuarteros, the civil defense chief in Cagayan province, where Ramil was expected to cause most damage, said rescue teams and dozens of trucks capable of passing through floods had been deployed along the northeast coast.

Deploying the roughly 500 rescue personnel in advance would make it easier for them to bring people out of danger if the weather turned for the worse, he added.

The national government had also placed rescue teams on standby and placed relief goods in Cagayan and neighboring regions, authorities said.

The National Disaster Coordinating Council said 90 tons of food and other relief items had been trucked to northern Luzon, while 44 tons were being flown to the sparsely populated Batan island group further to the north.

The Japan Meteorological Agency said Ramil was creating a broad front of 440 kilometers and could potentially cause bad weather across all of the upper half of Luzon that is still recovering from the previous two storms.

Ondoy pounded Manila and areas neighboring the capital with the heaviest rains in more than four decades on September 26, killing 420 people.

The health department said another 106 people died from ensuing disease outbreaks.

Typhoon Pepeng struck a week later and hovered over northern Luzon as a tropical storm for days, triggering landslides that killed 438.